Anyone programming in Visual Foxpro out there?

Question

Is anyone programming in Visual Foxpro out there?

I'm stuck supporting a legacy foxpro system. Wanted to know who else is out there is using Foxpro.

Added 9/11/2008: Thanks to all of you who responded!

Answer 1

I don't program is Visual Foxpro nor have I, but Jeff and Joel talked about that language in one of their podcasts. From what I remember, they said it was a decent tool for its time, but is highly outdated now. Could you convert it to something more modern? Frankly, if any of my clients, who I made applications for in Classic ASP, contacted me for updates, I'd upgrade everything to .NET. To stay relevant and effective, you have to ante up eventually. That's been one of my biggest frustrations with programming and web development. At the same time, it's one of the best things about programming and web development because the technology is theoretically always getting better.

Answer 2

I'm still using VFP 9 for a couple of applications, migrating slowly to Python. Ask your specific question, if I know the answer then I will glad to help you.

If I cant't help you, there are many specific VFP support groups:

• Microsoft VFP newsgroup: server: news.microsoft.com / groups: microsoft.public.fox.vfp.*
• Tek-Tips VFP forum is another support group, some of the members are VFP MVPs (not Microsoft employees).

@Jason: all people that didn't use VFP thinks that it's outdated, I think that's not a coincidence that a vast majority of the people that used Fox / VFP still have a great respect for this tool and many of them continues to see it as a valid developement alternative for small/medium desktop applications.

Answer 3

@jason: I said I was stuck supporting it. It was not my choice. And it's not my prerogative to convert it to anything.

I've done .net, but frankly I much prefer python. Python, however, is not on the "approved languages list" at my company, so...

@PabloG: thanks, I'm aware of the resources out there. Thanks for the help offer!

Answer 4

I still do some VFP work, though it's mostly maintenance and small additions to existing systems. There are plenty of people still using it and the community has got much more active with the release of Sedna and VFPX. Microsoft didn't just abandon VFP like VB6, instead they at least made it extensible so further development could be done by the community.

Like @Pablo said, post specific questions and we'll try and answer them.

Answer 5

I'm supporting and actively developing a large VFP 8 vertical market application (along with my ASP.NET duties)

I've used the community at http://universalthread.com for support in the past. The interface to the site is awkward but the membership really knows VFP.

Answer 6

My job is actually converting a VFP application to C#. FoxPro was an amazing tools and a-lot of the technology has made its way into the sql server product. One problem with VFP in my opinion is that it's language is mind boggling strange (who uses a semi-colon for line CONTINUATION) and that it does not support separation of concerns.

Answer 7

My company is currently in the process of converting legacy systems in Dos FoxPro 2.5, Visual FoxPro 3 and Visual FoxPro 7 to a WPF/C#/SQL Server application. I have been doing VFP since 1993 and am feverishly trying to get up to speed in the .NET world.

A lot of my time now is keeping the legacy apps running while another team does the .NET development. I really want to be in that group. I am getting more assignments, but would really like to be doing more .NET than VFP.

Answer 8

is highly outdated now

Well, Version 9 came out last year, SP2 for that came out this year and it's supported until 2015. It remains unparalleled in terms of ease of use and speed with regards to its internal data engine, and is a great choice of front end for more modern and secure databases like SQL Server, MYSQL, FireBird or whatever. Using LINQ in .NET 3? Been doing that in the Fox Command Window since whenever!

Where it does fall down these days is lack of cross-platform and 64-bit support. There are better choices for Web-centric apps, or desktop apps that don't use a database backend.

Answer 9

For ISV applications, VFP still has a development metric, when used with tools written in VFP for the purpose of large-system development, that is an order of magnitude better than other stuff available on the market. The company for which I work has created (and is selling very successfully) a retail inventory management system with some 450 tables and twice that many custom views, never having more than 3 FTE developers working on the product at a time. True, two of them have 10+ years experience in retail inventory software; and true, the other (me) specializes in the efficient use of metadata in the development and runtime process); but it's all VFP. Our application runs on fox dbf's, and also on SQL Server, same code.

For the future, VFP is being ported to the CLR through two 3rd-party projects: the Guineu project (http://guineu.foxpert.com/), which takes compiled VFP code and translates to the CLR; and the VFP Compiler for .Net, which will have it's own VS-like environment (http://etecnologia.net). The VFP Compiler for .Net also extends VFP in various useful ways. In addition, eTecnologia has a CLR Extender, which allows .Net calls directly from within VFP. If you want to get a headache playing with WCF, you can do it from within VFP. Both compiler projects have a way to go; and both of them have already done the hard parts.

We see ourselves going the Silveright 2 route down the road not too far. Fortunately, all our business rules are in metadata, and converting them to a Windows Service (or, with the Compiler for .Net, a .Net service) will be exciting, but not daunting.

Answer 10

I'm working in VFP8 and have been getting good support from Experts-Exchange. Yes, it's a paid site, but I've found that it's worth it. There are some MVPs and other knowledgeable people who quickly jump in with answers. I don't want to detract from this site -- I just think Fox people should know where the others are. Now that I see people are here too, I'll definitely be frequenting the site.

I'm also keeping an eye on the future, wondering to where I should be building skills for marketability.

Answer 11

Additionally to the resources PabloG mentioned, you may want to check Universal Thread, which started as a VFP forum, and while it covers .NET and other platforms, still provides tons of VFP support. There are many VFP MVPs and several Microsoft employees who were part of the VFP dev team regularly answer questions there. It is a fee resource, and yopu also have free access to mor than 5 years of the monthly UT Magazine magazine, which I directed for many years. :)

Hope this helps.

Answer 12

In addition to Universal Thread, here are some more sites were you will find FoxPro developers.

• http://fox.wikis.com/
• http://www.foxforum.com
• http://www.foxite.com/

P.S. I too am a FoxPro developer.

Answer 13

I would also recommend Universal Thread, but if you require immediate assistance there is a VFP irc channel on Freenode

Answer 14

I'm supporting a SAGE Pro Series install done in VFP 8. It will be interesting to see what becomes of it as time marches on. I highly suspect that SAGE will "migrate" into some flavor of .NET.

Answer 15

VFP is our primary desktop development tool and we plan to continuing using VFP for all desktop development.

VFP is a wonderful development platform.

Answer 16

We use Visual Foxpro v9 SP1 (without Sedna) to compile reports by hitting our company's sales data warehouse and pulling back to Foxpro tables to do the major number crunching.

It is an extremely productive environment for doing those types of jobs and even lends itself easily to creating COM objects and the like.

With Sedna, it is possible to use C# as a front-end and communicate to a middle-ware Foxpro via XML.

Foxpro can hit any database system that you can get an ODBC driver for.

On the downside, all literature surrounding OO programming is too "Visual" centric and doesn't lend itself too well to abstract OO design. That is not the languages fault however, just that OO's big push into Foxpro was widget-centric. It is very possible to do OO in Foxpro (without widgets), although the attribute declarations are a little weird between private (hidden) and public variables.

Also a downside, it is possible to see 15 year old code that looks like a bunch of SQL statements rammed together, where it would take a PhD in Natural Language Studies to figure out. We (the new guys) try to write in a procedural manner with header comments and all and try to make readability priority number one (its usually number two after "it works, look how cool!")

Answer 17

I work in a company. We work in VFP 6.0, 7.0 and 9.0. We are 20 persons working in VFP since 18 yers. Im in this company since 2005 and im project lider. We do a lot off systems in VFP. In this moment we are tring to change to C#, but is really hard.

Sorry for my poor English

Answer 18

29 january, year 2010. still using it... -_-